LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



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U i 7 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 








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.w/\ 



BEYOND THE STARS; 



OR, 



HUMAN LIFE IN HEAVEN, 



BY 

REV. ARCHIBALD McCULLAGH, D.D., 

Minister of Ross Street Churchy Brooklyn, 



;SEP2ei887'A 



NEW YORK: 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 

38 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET. 



\^\^%"\ \ 



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Copyright, 1887, bt 
A^soN D. F. Randolph & Company. 



TflE Libra rV 

OP CONRRESS 
^i^SHlHOtoM 



Edward O. Jenkins' Sons, 

Printers^ 

20 North William Street, New York. 



TO THE MEMORY OP 

MY DEARLY BELOVED WIFE, 

WHOSE 

LOVE AND COMPANIONSHIP SWEETENED EXISTENCE 
AND MADE TOIL PLEASANT, 

AND 

WHOSE ENTRANCE UPON THE CELESTIAL LIFE HAS 
INVESTED HEAVEN WITH FRESH CHARMS, 

Ws little mok 
IS LOVINGLY INSCRIBED. 



PREFACE. 



This little book is the child of affliction. 
It lays no claims whatever to learned exegesis 
or literary excellencies. The questions which 
it discusses are the questions which rose be- 
fore the mind of the writer when he stood 
beside the hfeless body of the best friend he 
ever had in this world, and the one whom he 
loved most. Its aim is to focalize the various 
rays of divine truth scattered through the 
"Word of God upon the subject of the condi- 
tion of the blessed dead immediately after 
their departure out of this world, for the pur- 
pose of affording light and consolation to 
those whose hearts have been saddened and 
whose homes have been desolated by death. 

The author is neither so presumptuous nor 
so sanguine as to suppose that what he has 
written on this important and intensely in- 
teresting topic will, in every particular, com- 

(5) 



6 Preface, 

mand the assent or secure the approval of his 
readers. He only hopes that he has said 
nothing contrary to the statements of the 
Word of God and legitimate inferences from 
the same. 

Should the readers of these pages derive 
aught of the peace and comfort from their 
perusal which the writer has experienced in 
their preparation, he will feel amply re- 
warded. 

Brooklyn, June^ 1887. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I.— Heaven the Present Home, . 9 

II.— The Spiritual Body, ... 21 

III.— The Locality of Heaven, . . 27 
IV.— The Felicity of the Departed 

Saints, 33 

V. — Heavenly Recognition, . . 39 
VI. — The Employment and Home Life 

OF THE Glorified, ... 50 
VII.— The Relation of Departed 

Saints to this World, . . 62 

VIII.— The Resurrection Body, . . 72 
IX.— The Relation of the Saints to 

THE General Judgment, . . 88 

X.— The Grand Consummation, . . 99 



(7) 



BEYOND THE STARS. 



HEAVEN THE PRESENT HOME. 

It is a moment of great solemnity when 
we sit by the side of a beloved one and 
watch, with aching heart, hfe gradually ebb- 
ing — ^the eye growing dimmer, the pnlse 
feebler, the fatal pallor more visible, until 
death gains the mastery and the body sinks 
into that stillness and repose that knows no 
waking. What becomes of the soul imme- 
diately after death ? Whither has it gone ? 
Into what new scenes has it been ushered ? 
What is the character of that life which it is 
now hving apart from the body? These 
questions are not a matter of cold speculation 
or indiflEerence to those whose hearts have 
been riven, and the light of whose homes 

has been extinguished by the hand of death. 

(9J 



10 Beyond the Stars. 

Who, in the hour of bereavement, as he hung 
over the precious form of the departed, 
kissed the unresponsive lips and smoothed 
the cold, unconscious brow, has not asked 
himself whither has the spirit of his beloved 
gone. How anxiously does the widowed 
heart, whose deepest yearnings are for 

*^ The touch of a vanished hand, 
And the sound of a voice that is still," 

crave some light on this point. 

The Word of God throws more light on 
this interesting and important subject than 
we are wont to suppose, until our thoughts 
are specially directed to it. IS'o doubt its 
disclosures are meagre in comparison with 
what we would like to know; meagre in 
comparison with what we shall know when 
we ourselves cross time's boundary line and 
see the unseen world as it is. Let us take 
the Word of God as our lamp, to guide us as 
we attempt to follow the spirit to its new 
realm of being. 

When our Lord, on the eternally memo- 



Heaven the Present Home. 11 

rable night preceding His crucifixion, stood 
consciously under the cope of death. He said 
to His disciples, "Let not your heart be 
troubled. I go to prepare a place for you. 
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I 
will come again and receive you unto uiyseK, 
that where I am, there may ye be also." 
A little later, on the same night, He said, 
"Father, I will that they also whom Thou 
hast given me be with me where I am, that 
they may behold my glory which Thou hast 
given me." The next day, as He hung upon 
the Cross, His reply to the prayer of the 
penitent thief, that He would remember him 
when he came into HUs kingdom, was, 
" Yerily, I say unto thee. To-day shalt thou 
be with me in Paradise." Paul, in writing 
from Pome to the Philippians, assured them 
that he desired "to depart and be with 
Christ." These passages teach with mimis- 
takable clearness three things. The first is 
that heaven is a jplace^ a place of dbode^ dis- 
tinct from all other places as truly as is the 
earth we now inhabit. If it be not a bounded 



12 Beyond the Stars, 

place of abode, then these passages, and many 
other declarations of Scripture, have no 
meaning, and the apocalyptic vision of John 
on Patmos is an idle phantasm. Heaven is 
described in the Word of God as a glorious 
city. To the inspired vision of John this 
glorious city was surrounded by lofty walls 
of the most precious stones, which were 
pierced by gates of pearl; the streets of it 
were covered with a pellucid pavement of 
gold. No sun shone in or upon it. It 
needed no luminary such as supphes light 
and life to this planet, because it was illumi- 
nated by the visible presence and glory of 
God, and shone itself with a brilliancy and 
splendor that surpassed all created suns. 

It is not claimed that the Bible pictures of 
heaven are literal, complete, and exhaustive. 
There are many scenes on this earth of such 
surpassing grandeur, subhmity, and beauty, 
that no words can adequately describe them, 
no photographic art can faithfully portray 
them, no artist's brush can transfer them to 
canvas. Of such scenes we say that they 



Heaven the Present Home. 13 

must be seen to be appreciated. If this be 
true of some things upon the earth, how 
much more true is it of heaven itself. 

What is claimed is that the Bible sets forth 
heaven as a definite, tangible place of abode. 
It records two instances of men having been 
carried up bodily into heaven without dying. 
"By faith Enoch was translated that he 
should not see death ; and he was not found, 
because God had translated him." Elijah, in 
the sight of his pupil and successor, " went 
up by a whirlwind into heaven." 

When the Bible depicts heaven as a city 
of surpassing magnificence and loveliness, 
with many mansions and a central throne, 
and hghted by the glory of Him who sits 
upon that throne, it is reasonable to suppose 
that inspiration has employed the most ap- 
propriate symbols to convey to our minds 
some idea of that place, and that there is 
some resemblance between the descriptions 
and the thing described. 

The second thing is that heaven is not 
only a locality, a glorious place of abode, but 



14 Beyond the Stars. 

it is tlie place to wMcli Jesus went after His 
resurrection, and where He now lives and 
reigns. The body of Jesus, subsequent to 
His resurrection, was not bound by the mate- 
rial laws to which its actions were generally 
conformed previous to His death. During 
the forty days which intervened between His 
resurrection and His final ascension, He was 
wont suddenly to manifest Himself to His 
friends and followers, no one knew from 
whence, and as suddenly vanish, no one 
knew whither. He stood in the midst of the 
disciples " when the doors were shut for fear 
of the Jews." He suddenly became invis- 
ible — vanished from the sight of two of His 
disciples while they sat talking with Him in 
a house in the village of Emmaus. Yet, 
notwithstanding the fact that His body was 
transformed from an earthly to a heavenly 
organism, it was still a real body. To the 
" terrified and affrighted " disciples, who sup- 
posed when they saw Him suddenly come 
out of the unseen " that they beheld a spirit," 
He said, " Why are ye troubled ? and where- 



Heaven the Present Home, 15 

fore do reasonings arise in your heart ? See 
my hands and my feet, that it is I myseK ; 
handle me and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh 
and bones as ye behold me having." And at 
last, " while they beheld Him, He was taken 
up and a cloud received Him out of their 
sight." It was while, with uplifted hands, 
He was engaged in the act of blessing them, 
that His feet ceased to touch the mount, and 
they saw Him ascend up and up and up until 
a cloud intervened between Him and them, 
and He passed beyond the reach of their 
sight. As they stood in astonishment, gazing 
at the place where He had disappeared, 
"behold, two men stood by them in white 
apparel." These men, addressing them, said, 
" Te men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up 
into heaven ? This same Jesus which is taken 
from you into heaven shall so come in like 
manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven." 
The third thing is that the souls of be- 
lievers immediately pass into heaven, where 
they are with Jesus. "Yerily, I say unto 
tliee. To-day shalt thou be with me in Para- 



16 Beyond the Stars. 

dise." As this promise was uttered in the 
afternoon, it meant that before the sun then 
westering had sunk below the horizon, this 
ransomed soul would be with Jesus in heaven. 
Even when we think of heaven as a definite 
place of abode, we are accustomed to think 
of it as an immeasurable distance from the 
earth. But however widely it may be sepa- 
rated from us in space, it is clearly taught in 
the Scriptures that the intercourse between 
heaven and earth is constant and uninter- 
rupted. Milton has said : 

'* Millions of spiritual beings walk the earth, 
Both when we wake and when we sleep." 

It would only require a slight change in 
the organ of sight for new and startling 
wonders to burst upon our vision. Suppose 
the human eye possessed the combined 
powers of the telescope, the microscope, and 
the spectroscope-repossessed a range of vision 
so vast and penetrating that it could discern 
objects on the surface of distant planets, yet 
so minute that it could see things now invis- 



Heaven the Present Home, 17 

ible, and so piercing that it could look 
through objects now opaque and see their 
constituent elements, would not material 
creation assume a new aspect of wonder and 
beauty? A change in our present powers of 
vision, or the gift of a new sense, might show 
us that we are encompassed on every side by 
spiritual beings. When an army of Syrians 
encompassed the city of Dothan for the pur- 
pose of apprehending Elisha, the sight of 
this army paralyzed his attendant with fear. 
" Fear not," said the prophet, " for they that 
be with us are more than they that be with 
them." Then Elisha prayed that the Lord 
would open the eyes of his attendant. " And 
the Lord opened the eyes of the young man 
and he saw ; and behold, the mountain was 
full of horses and chariots of fire round about 
Ehsha." 

It is no mere speculation or soothing fancy 
to say that angels surround the couch of the 
dying saint to conduct bis liberated spirit to 
its celestial home. It is a revealed truth. In 

the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, our 
2 



18 Beyond the Stars. 

Lord says that when Lazarus died he was 
carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. 
"Abraham's bosom" is a metaphorical ex- 
pression equivalent to paradise or heaven. 
With reverent imagination we can see this 
band of holy ones convey the ransomed soul 
through interstellar spaces more swiftly than 
light travels — though it shoots through space 
at the rate of nearly eleven millions of miles 
per minute — yea, with almost the velocity of 
thought, until they reach the pearly gates of 
the celestial city, whose glory gleams afar. 
While friends, with hearts that ache with an 
intolerable sense of want, an unspeakable 
dreariness and loneliness, and with eyes 
dimmed with weeping, bend over the body 
scarcely cold in the embrace of death, the 
soul, amid the hallelujahs of angelic and re- 
deemed intelligences, enters heaven, and is 
conducted into the presence of Jesus, to be 
personally welcomed by Him. Just before 
the martyr Stephen fell, he "looked up 
steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of 
God, and Jesus standing on the right hand 



Heaven the Present Ilvme. 19 

of God." While his enemies stoned him, he 
called "upon the Lord, saying, Lord Jesus, 
receive my spirit," — and then immediately 
passed into the very heaven he saw opened, 
and into the presence of Jesus, whom he saw 
standing on the right hand of Grod. O, what 
a moment of unutterable rapture that must 
be for the redeemed one, as he passes through 
heaven's portals, and gazes for the first time 
upon its ineffable scenes and unreportable 
glories ! What ecstatic joy must thrill his 
being as he realizes that he is in heaven, 
saved and eternally safe, and that it is to be 
his home forever. Perhaps he may cry out : 

' ' And is this heaven ? and am I here ? 

How short the road ! how swift the flight I 
I am all life, all eye, all ear ; 
Jesus is here, my soul's delight. 

* ' Is this the heavenly Friend who hung 
In blood and ang^uish on the tree ? 
Whom Paul proclaimed, whom David sung, 
Who died for them, who died for me ? " 

Then the soul, at death, does not, as some 
would have us believe, sink into a state of 



20 Beyond the Stars. 

unconsciousness until the resurrection. If 
sucli were the case, it would be impossible to 
conceive of Paul saying that for him to die 
was gain. "Why did he desire to leave this 
world ? That he might sink into a state of 
unconsciousness? Way. He desired to de- 
part in order that he might be locally and 
visiblv with Christ. 

N^or does the soul at death pass into a place 
midway between earth and heaven — a place 
more exalted and grander than earth, yet 
lower and less glorious than heaven — until 
the resurrection. It passes immediately into 
heaven, that place of abode where God per- 
manently manifests the splendors of His 
uncreated glories, and where Jesus dwells in 
His glorified human nature. Life in this 
world is separation from the Lord. " While 
we are present in the body we are absent 
from the Lord : for we walk by faith, not by 
sight; we are willing rather to be absent 
from the body and be at home with the 
Lord." 



II. 

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 

Does the human spirit at death pass into 
the unseen world naked and disembodied ? 
There are men of profound and exact scholar- 
ship who, in the name of science and the 
Scriptures, on the combined authority of 
God's twofold revelation as given in nature 
and the written word, affirm that the soul 
possesses a non-atomic, ethereal enswathe- 
ment — a spiritual body within this material 
body, whose complex relation with it is 
simply dissolved by death. This invisible 
spiritual body which enswathes the soul, and 
through which the soul shines as the glory of 
< Christ's Divinity gleamed and flashed through 
the veil of His humanity on the Mount of 
Transfiguration, is the immortal vesture with 
which the 9oul passes into the eternal world. 

Joseph Cook, in his work on Biology, devotes 

(21) 



22 Beyond the Stars. 

a lecture to the discussion of the fact of a 
spiritual body in the light of the latest re- 
searches of a reverent science. Let me give 
an illustration from it, which shows the con- 
clusion which he reaches. I use very largely 
his own words. 

Suppose we take a human body, and sepa- 
rate it into its component parts of bones, 
muscles, arteries, and nerves. Were these 
four parts separated and held up in their nat- 
ural condition, they would each have a human 
form. But behind the nerves there are bio- 
plasts. Bioplasm means that germinal sub- 
stance which has the power of transmuting 
non-living into living matter, and of move- 
ment and of seK-multiplication. It is that 
power which builds the bones, braids the 
muscles, constructs the arteries and veins, and 
weaves the nerves. If we could take out these 
bioplasts which weave the nerves, and hold 
them up by the side of the nerves, aU in 
their natural position, they would have a 
human form. And which of these forms is 
the man ? Your muscles are more important 



The Spiritual Body. 23 

than your bones; your arteries than your 
muscles; your nerves than your arteries; 
and your bioplasts than your nerves. But 
you do not reach the last analysis here ; for 
if you unravel a man completely, there is 
something behind the bioplasts. There are 
many things we cannot see that we know. 
We know that there is in our bodies a ner- 
vous influence that plays up and down our 
nerves like electricity on the telegraph wire. 
We have never seen it, but we have felt it. 
Suppose we could take that out. Suppose 
we have here a man made up of nerves, and 
here a man made up of bioplasts, and here a 
man made up of nervous influence, separated 
entirely from flesh. The man of nervous 
force would be more ethereal than either the 
man of nerves or the man of bioplasts — so 
ethereal as to be invisible and intangible to 
men in their present state. But would not 
this be a man very much more than either of 
the other two ? What if death thus dissolves 
the innermost from the outermost? We 
absolutelv know that nervous influence is 



24 Beyond the Stars. 

there. We know also that there is something 
behind the action of these bioplasts. If we 
could take this something, which is still finer 
than what we call nervous influence, and 
could hold it up here, it would be coincident 
everywhere with the mysterious human phys- 
ical outline. "Would it not be ethereal enough 
to go into heaven ? When the Bible speaks 
of a spiritual body, it implies that the soul 
has a glorified enswathement which will ac- 
company it in the next world. " I believe," 
adds Mr. Cook, " that it is a distinct bibhcal 
doctrine that there is a spiritual as there is a 
natural body, and that the former has extra- 
ordinary powers. It is a body which appar- 
ently makes nothing of passing through 
what we call ordinary matter. The great 
proposition I wish to emphasize is, that 
science, in the name of the microscope and 
scalpel, begins to whisper what revelation 
ages ago uttered in thunders, that there is a 
spiritual body with glorious capacities. The 
self-evident axiom that every change must 
have an adequate cause, requires us to hold 



Tlie Spiritual Body. 25 

that there exists behind the nerves a non- 
atomic ethereal enswathement for the soul, 
which death dissolves out from all complex 
contact with mere flesh, and which death, 
thus unfettering without disembodying, 
leaves free before God for all the develop- 
ment with which God can inspire it." 

Paul says, not that there will be, but that 
there are, spiritual bodies. "If," he says, 
"there is a natural body, there is also a 
spiritual body." And who will say that the 
glorified body in which Moses appeared on 
the Mount of Transfiguration, a body not 
subject to the laws of time and space, but 
capable of coming out of the unseen and 
vanishing into it again, is not the character 
of the body worn by the redeemed in the 
interval between their departure out of this 
world and the resurrection? If our loved 
ones, for whom to live was Christ, were in 
the very article of death made perfect in 
holiness, and in spiritual bodies passed imme- 
diately into heaven, has death for them not 
been immense gain ? 



26 Beyond the Stars. 

It is strictly true that 

'* It is not death to die, 

To leave this weary road, 
And 'mid the brotherhood on high, 
To be at home with God. 

** It is not death to close 

The eye long dimmed by tears, 
And wake in glorious repose. 
To spend eternal years. 

^ ^ It is not death to fling 
Aside this sinful dust, 
And rise on strong exulting wing 
To live among the just. 

* ^ Jesus, Thou Prince of life, 
Thy chosen cannot die. 
Like Thee, they conquer in the strife, 
To reign with Thee on high." 



III. 

THE LOCALITY OF HEAVEN. 

We have seen that heaven is a definite 
place in some part of the universe. Is it pos- 
sible to determine its locality ? The depths 
of space beyond the surface of the earth are 
designated in the Scriptures by the term 
heavens. These heavens are spoken of as 
divided into three vast regions. The first 
heaven is the region of the atmosphere where 
the clouds are formed, the wind blows, and the 
birds fly. The second heaven is that immeas- 
urable expanse in which the sun, moon, 
and the countless stars move and shine. The 
third heaven, or " heaven of heavens," is the 
place where God specially and permanently 
manifests His glory, and where the angels 
and the saints who have gone from this 
world dwell. The Bible, in speaking of this 
heaven of heavens, always speaks of it as 



28 Beyond the Stars. 

above the earth. When the great forerunner 
of Christ stood on the banks of the Jordan, 
he said : " I saw the Spirit descending from 
heaven like a dove." To Nicodemus, Christ 
himself said: "No man hath ascended up 
to heaven but He that came down from 
heaven." Paul tells us that on one occasion 
he was " caught up to the third heaven and 
heard unspeakable words which it is not law- 
ful for a man to utter." John, in describ- 
ing the vision which he received of heaven 
in Patmos, says : " I looked, and behold, a 
door was opened in heaven; and the first 
voice which I heard was as it were of a 
trumpet talking with me, which said. Come 
up liitTievP As the Bible speaks in popular 
language, the idea which it designs to convey 
by representing heaven as above the earth, 
is that it is a place more glorious and exalted 
than the earth. 

This is all the light it throws upon its lo- 
cality. 

But has anything been discovered in 
nature, that other volume of Jehovah's 



The Locality of Heawen, 29 

revelation, which throws any light on this 
interesting point ? Since Newton discovered 
that mystic key that unlocks so many of the 
secrets of the stellar heavens, astronomers 
have assiduously sought to find the centre of 
universal motion. Nor have their labors 
been altogether in vain. Madler, of Dorpat, 
after a series of the most elaborate observa- 
tions and ingenious calculations extending 
through years, " reached the conclusion that 
Alcyone, the principal star in the group of 
the Pleiades, now occupies the centre of 
gravity, and is at present the sun about which 
the universe of stars composing our astral 
system are revolving." Some conception may 
be formed of the enormous distance which 
separates us from this central sun if we re- 
flect that it takes light travelling at the rate 
of twelve millions of miles a minute five 
hundred and thirty-seven years to make the 
journey. It takes our sun eighteen million 
two hundred thousand years to make one 
revolution around this central luminary! 
"What a lofty significance do these facts im- 



30 Beyond the Stars. 

part to the question Jehovah put to Job: 
"Canst thou bind the sweet influences of 
Pleiades?" Canst thou arrest that attract- 
ive influence which it wields over the sun 
and its attendant worlds by which it sends 
them careering with bewildering velocity, 
yet without the slightest jar or discord, in an 
orbit of such immensely vast dimensions? 
If Madler's conclusion does not rest on the 
most absolute proof, yet it is claimed for it 
that " it is as much like the truth as most 
photographs are like the persons who sit for 
their pictures in the sun." 

Just as Alcyone is the centre around which 
our sun, with his lordly retinue of planets and 
satellites, moves with majestic sweep, it is rea- 
sonable to conjecture that there is hid away 
in the infinite depths of space a gravity cen- 
tre of the whole material universe — a sun of 
suns, around which all suns and systems re- 
volve in their vast and almost eternal orbits. 
" It is true we have no certain knowledge of 
such a centre, but analogy points to it ; and 
if the world were to continue long enough 



The Locality of Heaven, 31 

to accumulate, in future millenniums, accurate 
series of observations of the motion of the 
whole heavens, we might even hope to calcu- 
late the direction and distance of the phys- 
ical heaven of heavens ; and perhaps instru- 
ments might be constructed to catch some 
rays of its light for mortal eyes. Such an- 
ticipations may never be realized, and we 
must for the present be content to know that 
science and revelation, standing on the ex- 
treme \ierge of their respective fields, both 
point to a mysterious centre of the universe 
of God, whence emanate powers that extend 
to the utmost limits of space, and where 
dwells glory inaccessible, which eye hath not 
seen, neither hath it entered into the heart 
of man to conceive." "^ 

'' At the centre of this august totahty of 
revolving orbs and firmaments, at once the 
centre of motion and the centre of govern- 
ment to all, is that better country, even the 



* '^Nature and the Bible," by Sir J. W. Daw- 
son, p. 71. 



32 Beyond the Stars. 

heavenly, where reigns in glory everlasting 
the Supreme Father and Emperor of I^atnre, 
the capital *of creation ; the one spot that has 
no motion, but basks in majestic and perfect 
repose while beholding the whole ponderous 
materialism which it ballasts in course of cir- 
culation about it." ^ It is safe for us to 
accept this conjecture in regard to the locality 
of heaven as true, until we ourselves by God's 
grace reach that glorious place and in the 
light of its disclosures learn the truth with 
certainty. 

* '' Ecce Coelum," by E. F. Burr, T>1>., page 150. 



IV. 



THE FELICITY OF THE DEPARTED 
SAINTS. 

The beUever in his passage out of this 
world experiences two great changes. He is 
freed from a gross material body and has a 
body exquisitely attuned to the movements 
and faculties of the soul. He is also abso- 
lutely delivered from sin, both as an indwell- 
ing principle and as an opposing force. 

The negative features of the state upon 
which he enters beyond death are very fully 
set forth in the Scriptures. There will be 
an absence of all those things which shadow, 
corrode, and destroy happiness in this life. 

One of the most familiar spectacles in 

this world is poverty. There are millions — 

some of them the blood-bought sons and 

daughters of God — for whom life means a 

desperate struggle for the scanty necessities 

of existence. But in heaven there will be 
3 (33) 



34 Beyond the Stars. 

no poverty. " They shall hunger no more, 
neither thirst any more" — "For the Lamb 
which is in the midst of the throne shall feed 
them, and shall lead them unto living foun- 
tains of waters." 

There will be no pain iu heaven, l^o 
matter in what direction we turn our eyes, 
we see human beings hampered by bodily 
infirmities, or dragging out a miserable ex- 
istence in the midst of physical sufferings. 
The life of the redeemed on the other side 
of the grave is unassailed and unassailable by 
disease and infirmity. No consuming fevers, 
no wasting consumption, no palsied limbs, 
no sightless eyes, no mute tongues are found 
in heaven. 

There are moral pains as well as those 
physical diseases which turn existence into 
misery and make every nerve a source of 
anguish. In this world we have to perform 
painful duties, to submit to painful associa- 
tions, and to experience painful partings. 
There is no pain and nothing painful in 
heaven. 



The Fdicity of the Departed Saints, 35 

This world, with all its beauty and all its 
joy, is full of sorrow. There is no moment 
of time when some hearts are not aching with 
secret griefs, or breaking with nameless woes, 
as well as with sorrows which cannot be hid 
from the public eye. Is it not a heart-rending 
scene to see a group of httle children, just at 
that age when they specially need a mother's 
watchful care, gather round her lifeless form 
to imprint their last kiss upon her motionless 
lips ? Death is a terrible, relentless, inexora- 
ble foe, who ruthlessly severs the closest and 
tenderest ties of nature without explanation 
and without apology. On what household 
has not his blighting shadow fallen ? What 
heart has he not touched and saddened ? But 
there is a world where "there shall be no 
more death; neither sorrow nor crying; 
neither shall there be any more pain ; for the 
former things are passed away." Twice it is 
affirmed in the closing chapter of the Apoca- 
lypse that " there shall be no night in heaven." 
In this world night, which by its darkness 
and silence favors a constantly-recurring pe- 



36 Beyond the Stars. 

riod of repose, is as necessary to us as the day. 
Rest — sleep — 

*^ Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of 

care, 
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, 
Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second 

course, 
Chief nourisher in life's feast," 

is indispensable to man. Tlie fact that " there 
shall be no night " in heaven suggests that the 
redeemed, on entering it, are clothed with an 
amazing increase of power, since they need 
no season of repose. But " night " is used in 
the Scriptures in a metaphorical sense for ig- 
norance and error. Therefore, we may in- 
terpret the absence of night as meaning that 
there shall be no intellectual and spiritual 
darkness in heaven. 

" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
shall see God." 

" Here our views are limited ; and we see 
only the skirts of His glory ; there the reve- 
lation will be as ample as our finite faculties 
will permit. What saints already know will 



The Felicity of the Dejparted Saints. 31 

shine with new light, and present itself to 
their minds with an evidence and satisfaction 
which they never formerly experienced ; mys- 
teries will be explained, difficulties will be 
solved, and excellencies will rise to view in 
the Divine nature, of which no vestige was 
discoverable in His works. How glorious 
will He appear when every veil is removed, 
and He is contemplated in the fullness of 
His attributes ! The sight will be transport- 
ing, and will excite the highest admiration 
and joy." * 

In view of that new and infinitely more 
glorious mode of existence that awaits the be- 
liever the moment he passes out of this world, 
is it not true that death is immeasurable 
gain ? " Blessed are the dead who die in the 
Lord." Dead ! 

" There is no death — what seems so is transition ; 
This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of life elysian, 
Whose portal we call death." 

The departed saints are living a far higher, 



*Dr. Jolin Dick. 



38 Beyond the Stars. 

grander, and nobler life than we are. " To 
him that overcometh will I grant to sit with 
me in my throne, even as I also overcame 
and am set down with my Father in His 
throne." They have overcome, and have en- 
tered upon a career of sinless, griefless, pain- 
less, deathless activity, in which they are per- 
fectly happy up to the measure of their 
capacities. 

** We speak of the realms of the blest, 
Of that country so bright and so fair, 
And oft are its glories confessed — 
But what must it be to he there f 

** We speak of its pathways of gold, 

Of its walks decked with jewels so rare, 
Of its wonders and pleasures untold — 
But what must it be to be there f " 



HEAVENLY RECOGNITION. 

Aee the tender relationsliips and holy fel- 
lowships of this world, which have been sev- 
ered by death, ever to be reunited ? Shall we 
know and love in heaven those whom we 
have known and loved on earth ? As there 
are few who have not reluctantly surrendered 
loved ones into the hands of death, the re- 
newal of whose companionship they crave, 
this topic is one of thrilKng interest to us all. 
Before adducing the direct testimony of God's 
Word on this important topic, glance for a 
moment at two strong presumptive argu- 
ments. The first is, that a behef in future . 
recognition is a matter of almost universal 
expectation. On this point, nearly all man- 
kind — Greeks and Eomans, Jews and Gen- 
tiles, Christians and heathens — are agreed. 

God never mocks His creatures. The fact 

(39) 



40 Beyond the Stars. 

that He has implanted an instinct, appetite, 
or desire in our nature shows that He has 
made provision for its legitimate gratification 
— as certainly as that He made the eye 
for light and the lungs for air. But, if we 
are not to know our earthly friends after we 
part with them here, then God, contrary to 
His known character, has implanted deeply 
in our natures a universal expectation which 
is doomed to disappointment. The conse- 
quences which flow from a denial of this doc- 
trine are appalling. If there is no mutual 
recognition of friends in heaven, then the 
death of our loved ones is, for us, equivalent 
to their annihilation ; for if they continue to 
live, and we do not know them, it is the same 
to us as if they did not exist at all. Is not 
this a thought from which we shrink with 
horror ? 

The second argument is the immortality of 
memory. There are few facts more clearly 
established in mental science than that what- 
ever is once stamped upon the memory is 
never forgotten. Ten thousand things which 



Heavenly Becognition. 41 

have been said and done and known, may pass 
from recollection without being obliterated 
from the memory. The tablet of the human 
memory is God's book of remembrance, on 
which is written the record of each man's hf e. 
Many trustworthy instances might be cited of 
memory, when men were suddenly brought 
face to face with death, marshalling all the 
events of a lifetime before the mind in the 
twinkling of an eye. It only requires some 
extraordinary incident to occur in the experi- 
ence of any man to cause his memory to re- 
call all the forgotten secrets of his life, and 
hold them up before his mind. It is clearly 
taught in the Bible that memory, which is 
the foundation of all the intellectual faculties, 
accompanies us into the eternal world. In- 
deed, its perpetuity is essential to our identi- 
tv. Christ did not come into this world to . 
change the mental and moral faculties of man, 
but to purify them, exalt them, and fix them 
on God. The redemption song which the • 
saved in glory sing involves the continuance 
of memory ; it implies that they remember 



42 Beyond the Stars, 

their experience here, and the sins from 
which they have been washed. If they re- 
member their experiences here, will they not 
also remember those with whom their lives 
were most intimately intertwined ? 

Look at some of the testimonies of Scrip- 
ture on this point. Take the case of David. 
When his child was smitten with a severe ill- 
ness, David prostrated himseK upon the 
ground, and fasted and prayed, in the hope 
that God would arrest the disease and spare 
the child's life. But when he learned that 
the child was dead, to the astonishment of 
his servants he rose from the ground, washed 
himself, went to the house of the Lord and 
worshipped, and then partook of some re- 
freshments. The explanation which he gave 
of his conduct was this: "While the child 
was yet alive, I fasted and wept ; for I said. 
Who can tell whether God will be gracious 
to me that the child may live? But now 
that he is dead .... I shall go to him ; but 
he shall not return to me." This incident 
shows two things — that David confidently ex- 



Heavenly Recognition, 43 

pected to see his child after death, and as 
confidently expected to recognize him. 

Take the Transfiguration scene on the 
Monnt. The disciples knew that the two 
celestial visitors who appeared in company 
with Christ on that occasion, were Moses and 
Elijah. How they learned this fact, whether * 
Jesus told them, or they gathered it from 
the conversation which they overheard, or 
knew from something in the appearance of 
these illustrious personages who they were — 
we are not informed. But if the disciples • 
knew these two men, is it not reasonable to 
suppose that Moses and Elijah knew each 
other? And if Moses and Elijah, whose 
ministries on earth were separated by cen- 
turies, knew each other, is it not fair to sup- 
pose that other saints in heaven know each 
other ? 

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus > 
teaches us that Dives knew Abraham and 
recognized Lazarus. He remembered his 
own life in this world, and the history and 
conduct of his brethren with whom he had 



44: Beyond the Stars, 

been intimately associated on the earth stood 
out distinctly before his mind. 

Man will be essentially the same through- 
out the ceaseless millenniums of eternity. And 
as man he needs, with reverence be it said, 
more than the society of God and the angels 
to render the blessedness of heaven complete. 
He needs the society and companionship of 
his fellow-beings, those who are on a level 
with him and have had an equality of expe- 
rience. He who did not deem it " good for 
man to be alone " in the sinless paradise of 
earth, even when he enjoyed the society of 
God himself and had angels for his asso- 
ciates, knows that it would not be good for 
man to be alone even in the midst of celes- 
tial bliss, " and therefore He has provided 
for the association of the spirits of just men 
made perfect with each other. 

" He who dowered this earth with such 
strong personal attachments, the sweetest and 
best things in it, will not deprive heaven of 
them. He who united two fond hearts by 
the closest and most endearing ties of earth, 



Heavenly Recognition, 45 

will not beyond the grave, as tlie poet says, 
sever that united life in two, and bid each 
half live again and connt itself the whole. 
Are they not as husband and wife heirs to- 
gether of eternal life ? The marriage union 
were but a poor image of the bond that 
unites Christ to His Church if it were loosed 
beyond the grave. It is true that there is 
neither marrying nor giving in marriage in 
heaven, for under new conditions there must 
be new relations ; but it is only that which 
is temporary in marriage that is dissolved by 
death, while that love in it which is im- 
mortal is purified and perfected. If in this 
life only we love, to extend the words of the 
apostle, we are indeed most miserable, con- 
sidering the preciousness of love and the 
frail tenure on which it hangs — the warm 
nest on the rotten bough. If on heaven's 
oblivious shore we have everlasting joy, but 
never more the friends that were dear to 
us here; if to die is the disintegration of 
love, and reconstruction of it beyond the 
grave as an impersonal universal element 



46 Beyond the Stars. 

which all shall breathe equally ; if the man- 
sions of the blessed are denuded of special 
and particular affections, and every one there 
shall be equally dear, and all shall be loved 
alike — there is nothing attractive in the pic- 
ture or prospect. We shrink from it with 
instinctive dislike. It is not what our warm 
hearts crave, for we know well that if we 
cease to love them with a positive, definite, 
individual love, we lose our memory and our 
identity; we cease to be ourselves. Our 
hearts protest against such a doctrine as that, 
and, blessed be God, it exists only in the vain 
imaginations of ignorant men ; it has no 
place in the Bible. In God's Word we are 
told that we shall have the most endearing 
society in heaven ; that that society will in- 
clude those to whom we were most tenderly 
related by nature or pious fellowship, purged 
of all Its selfishness and perpetuated in the 
purest and most blissful form forever. It is 
in order that human beings in heaven, while 
they love all the saints with pure hearts fer- 
vently, may love individuals with a special 



Heavenly Recognition, 47 

individual love, and may be bound to them 
by special ties of gratitude and affection, that 
He makes them here the instruments of each 
other's salvation. Why are children com- 
mitted to the fostering care of parents with 
the injunction from the heavenly Father to 
train them up for Him ? Why are the ties 
of family and friendship so many consecrated 
channels through which the life-blood of re- 
ligion may flow from heart to heart ? Is it 
not that the family of God in heaven may 
be linked together by the special ties that 
bind them here ? " "^ 

Did not the Lord Jesus while loving all 
His people, manifest a peculiar regard for 
some? Peter, James, and John were hon- 
ored by being admitted to a degree of closer 
intimacy than the other members of the 
apostolic band. They were witnesses of His 
transfiguration and of His agony in Geth- 
semane. He loved John more than any of 
His disciples. And of those outside of the 

* " Three Great Miracles," by Eev. HughMac- 
millan, LL.D. 



48 Beyond the Stars. 

apostolic band He loved with a special, per- 
sonal love, Mary and Martha and Lazarus. 
Is not Jesus " the same yesterday, to-day, 
and forever " ? Is He not the perfect model 
of His saints, whether on earth or in heaven ? 
Then heaven is not denuded of special and 
particular affection. Our loved ones who 
have passed into heaven, for whom our love 
has increased rather than diminished since 
their departure, have no more forgotten us 
or ceased to love us than we have forgotten 
them or ceased to love them. Though sin- 
less, transfigured, and glorious, they are still 
human and essentially the same as when they 
left us. They have met, recognized, and 
now associate with those whom they knew 
and loved here, who were in heaven before 
them, and they wait to welcome those whom 
they love who are to follow them. Could 
they speak to us we might hear them say : 

* ' O friends of mortal years, 
The trusted and the true, 
Ye are watching still in the valley of tears, 
But I wait to welcome you. 



Hea/venly Recognition. 49 

*' Do I forget ? O no ! 

For memory's golden chain 
Shall bind my heart to the hearts below, 
Till they meet to touch again.'' 



YI. 



THE EMPLOYMENT AKD HOME LIFE OF 
THE GLORIFIED. 

What is the employment of tlie redeemed 
in the heavenly world ? The answer to this 
interesting question must be based on the na- 
ture of the soul, and the Scriptural descrip- 
tions of heaven, rather than on any specific 
statements of the Bible. It will help us to 
true, realistic ideas of heaven if we keep 
clearly before our minds the design of Christ's 
redemptive work. Man was originally made 
in the image of God. The record is : " God 
created man in His own image ; in the image 
of God created He him." This means that 
God endowed man with those rational and 
moral attributes which belong to Himself as 
a Spirit. If man had not sinned he would not 
have died, but at the end of the period of his 

probation his body would have undergone 
(50) 



The Employment of the Glorified, 51 

such a change as would have rendered it im- 
mortal. " We shall not all sleep ; but we 
shall all be changed." The design of salva- 
tion is not to recreate man, in the sense of 
making him a new and different kind of a 
being from what he is*. Regeneration does 
not alter the constitution of the soul,- but 
changes its governing disposition, and fash- 
ions it anew after the image of God in knowl- 
edge, righteousness, and true holiness. The 
object of salvation is to restore man to the 
position which he once occupied as the child 
and companion of God. "Human nature 
will never cease to be human nature, or be 
changed into a different species of existence, 
no more than Jesus Christ, the head of His 
Church, will ever cease to be what He is — 
the man Christ Jesus, with a human body 
and a human soul, the same yesterday, to-day, 
and forever." 

When the soul quits the body, it carries 
with it into heaven all those innate and ac- 
quired mental idiosyncrasies and moral quali- 
ties which distinguished it on earth from all 



52 Beyond the Stars. 

others. If we regard our friends who have 
entered heaven as unchanged in the essential 
elements of their being, retaining their in- 
dividuality and all those characteristics which 
endeared them to us while on the earth, only 
freed from the limitations of this body, then 
there are certain employments in which it is 
both rational and Scriptural to suppose them 
to be engaged. One of these employments ie 
praise. Praise is set forth in the Bible as 
constituting a conspicuous feature of the 
heavenly life. John was caught up into 
heaven, and was inspired by the Holy Spirit 
to describe, as pictorially and accurately as it 
is possible to portray celestial scenes in earth- 
ly language, what he saw and heard. He saw 
" four living creatures " — pictorial symbols of 
the creative work and providential govern- 
ment of God — surround the throne of the 
Eternal, ceaselessly singing, " Holy, holy, holy, 
Lord God Almighty, which* was, and is, and 
is to come." They are ceaseless, because there 
is no cessation in the honor which God re- 
ceives from His works and the various acts of 



Tke Employment of the Glorified, 53 

His providence. The four-and-twenty elders 
who represent saved sinners, and who were 
arrayed in white robes, and crowned with 
golden crowns, and seated on thrones, fell 
down before Him who sat on the central 
throne, and cast their golden crowns at His 
feet, saying : " Thou art worthy, O Lord, to 
receive glory and honor and power, for Thou 
hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure 
they are and were created." Beside the eter- 
nal throne upon which Deity, in the person 
of the Father, sat, stood the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and in His presence the four-and-twenty el- 
ders fell down, and sung a new song, saying : 
" Thou art worthy to take the book, and to 
open the seals thereof ; for Thou wast slain 
and hast redeemed us to God, by Thy blood, 
out of every tribe and tongue and people and 
nation ; and hast made us unto our God kings 
and priests." And the angels, to the number 
of "ten thousand times ten thousand and 
thousands of thousands," joined in this song, 
saying : " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain 
to receive power and riches and wisdom and 



54 Beyond the Stars. 

strength and honor and glory and blessing." 
John described what he saw — angels who had 
never sinned, and human beings who had 
sinned and who had passed from earth to 
heaven, uniting in adoring ascriptions of praise 
and gratitude to God. He has reported to 
us the words of these heavenly songs. The 
thoughts and sentiments which they contain 
are the thoughts and sentiments of every one 
in this world who worships God in spirit and 
in truth. As the life of the saint in heaven is 
a continuance of the life he began here, his 
worship and praise differs not in kind, only 
in degree, from what it did here. As the 
glorified saints are sinless, and with them 
faith has given way to sight, and hope has 
been merged into fruition, their praise is 
more rapturous and ecstatic. But it is not to 
be supposed that they spend all their time in 
singing. There is nothing irrational or un- 
scriptural in supposing that there are stated 
periods in heaven, as there are on earth — 
great days of the Lord — when saints and an- 
gels gather from all parts of heaven before 



V 

The Employment of the Glorified. 55 

the Lord, and give expression to their exult- 
ant joy in rapturous and thrilling songs which 
fill heaven with the echo. 

Another employment of heaven is the ac- 
quisition of knowledge. To say that the hu- 
man mind is cultivatable and expansible is to 
state the merest truism. Look at the obsta- 
cles it has overcome, the discoveries it has 
made, and the wonderful things which it has 
achieved through the ages that are past. 
Still, there is no indication that it has called 
into active operation all its latent forces, or 
touched the Kmit of its power in any particu- 
lar direction. After all, how little do men 
know of the secrets of the universe in which 
they live — of the nature of the forces which 
lie behind phenomena ! No doubt the future 
will chronicle greater discoveries, sublimer and 
more brilliant intellectual achievements than 
the past records. Earthly existence is the 
period of the mind's childhood. There is a 
great difference between the mind of a child 
and the mind of a sage ; between Goethe and 
a Gei-man peasant, Newton and an English 



56 Beyond the Stars. 

plougliman, Emerson and a Georgian negro. 
But there is a greater difference between the 
wisest philosopher on earth and one who has 
passed ont of the conditions of time and sense 
into the spirit world. Kew wonders and 
glories in creation, exhibiting the manifold 
wisdom and power of God, on a scale far sur- 
passing the loftiest attainments of the wisest 
of men, burst upon the minds of the glorified, 
and open up to their contemplation endless 
avenues of knowledge. The mysteries of 
Providence which baflBle and perplex us, they 
understand. The things of revelation which 
are too deep for us to fathom, and too lofty 
for us to scale, they clearly apprehend. I^ew 
wonders — deep mysteries pertaining to God, 
His works, acts, and purposes — are constantly 
imfolding themselves to their minds, and 
widening the range of their knowledge. 
Paul, in contrasting the limitation and im- 
perfection of our knowledge in this world 
with what it will be in the world to come, 
says : " I^ow we see through a glass darkly, 
but then face to face ; now I know in part, 



The Employment of the Glorified. 57 

but then shall I know even as I am 
^.^own," 

We hesitate not to believe that the same 
diversity which marks society in this lower 
world will chai-acterize the society of heaven, 
and that it has spheres of employment suited 
to the powers and capacities of those who 
enter it. God has made no two things ex- 
actly alike. This is true everywhere. Take 
the tube of the astronomer and sweep the 
glittering vault of night, and in its depths 
you will find no two stars that are exactly 
alike. Here is Mars, glowing with his crim- 
son hue ; there is Jupiter, with his attendant 
moons, and yonder is Saturn, girdled with his 
mysterious rings. " There is one glory of the 
sun, and another glory of the moon, and an- 
other glory of the stars; for star differeth 
from star in glory." As in the starry realm, 
so in the vegetable world there are generic 
likenesses with specific differences. No two 
blades of grass, no two roses, no two trees, no 
two plants in earth's fiora are exactly alike. 
The same diversity exists in the kingdom of 



58 Beyond the Stars. 

men. No two human bodies, no two human 
faces, no two human voices, are in every par- 
ticular the same. A like dissimilarity is ex- 
hibited in characters which have been moulded 
by divine grace. God never casts two human 
beings in exactly the same form. There is 
Abraham the patriarch, Moses the lawgiver, 
Samuel the judge, David the king, Elijah the 
reformer, Daniel the statesman, Ezra the the- 
ologian, JSTehemiah the patriot, Paul the mis- 
sionary, and John the seer. How unlike, in 
many particulars, these great men are. Yet 
each was a chosen workman of God. The 
same dissimilarity exists among the inhabit- 
ants of heaven. While all of them are per- 
fectly happy up to the measure of their ca- 
pacity, there is a difference in the degrees of 
their capacity for enjoying. So there are de- 
grees of brilliancy, degrees of power, degrees 
of honor in heaven, as the reward of faithful 
and heroic service here. If the Christian life 
here is a training-school for the life hereafter, 
then the gifts cultivated and the sinless ha})its 
acquired in this world, will have an influence 



The Home Life of the Glorijied. 59 

in fitting men for the different spheres of 
activity in the heavenly world. It may be 
that one part of the employment of glorified 
saints is the same as the angels' — ^to act as 
messengers of God to distant worlds in vari- 
ous parts of the universe. 

Man is a social being, and in heaven there 
is provision made for this part of his nature. 
Heaven is a vast and populous world, and 
contains "many mansions.'' Each one may 
possess a mansion — "a building of God, a 
house not made with hands " — that will cor- 
respond to the nature of that land and the 
body there worn as truly as our present 
houses correspond to this world- and these 
material bodies. " From scenes of surpassing 
glory, and from the public services of un- 
utterable joy that crowd heaven, the redeemed 
need places of retirement where they may 
gather and compose their thoughts in medita- 
tion, and receive the full benefit of their 
pubhc outgoings." ^ 

*** Paradise," by Rev. Robert M. Patterson, 
D.D., page 201. 



60 Beyond the Stars. 

In these mansions the redeemed meet for 
pnrposes of social intercourse and mutual ed- 
ification. They tell each other of their expe- 
rience in that glorious land, and converse 
about the things in which they are mutually 
interested. 

« What if earth 

Be but the shadow of heaven ? and things 
therein 

Each to other like, more than on earth is 
i thought." 

"As knowledge here is acquired by the 
aid of instructors, why," asks Dr. Archibald 
Alexander, " may not the same be the fact in 
heaven ? What a delightful employment to 
the saints who have been drinking in the 
knowledge of G-od and His works for thou- 
sands of years, to communicate instruction to 
the saints just arrived ! How delightful to 
conduct the pilgrim, who has just finished 
his race, through the endless, blooming bow- 
ers of Paradise, and to introduce him to this 
and the other ancient believer, and to assist 
him to find out and recognize among so great 
a multitude old friends and earthly relatives." 



The Home Life of the Glorified, 61 

The attributes and laws of the human soul, 
and the intimations and implications of the 
Scriptures, justify us in believing that our 
loved ones who have passed into heaven are 
not so changed as to be unrecognizable, nor 
have they entered upon a mode of existence 
utterly inconceivable. They retain their in- 
dividuality and the sinless characteristics which 
endeared them to us here. Freed from the 
limitations of time and sense, they are more 
glorious than they were. They are conscious- 
ly and blissfully in the presence of God, in 
the society of Jesus, in the companionship of 
angels and sinless fellow-beings, engaged in 
such services as the powers with which they 
were originally dowered and the discipline of 
this world fitted them. We speak of them 
as dead. But — 

*' Death is another life. We bow our heads 
At going oaL we think, and enter straight 
Another golden chamber of the King's, 
Larger than this, and lovelier." 



YII. 

THE RELATION OF DEPARTED SAINTS 
TO THIS WORLD. 

What relation do glorified human spirits 
sustain to this world ? Do they still retain an 
interest in it ? Do they know anything that 
occurs here ? 

It has already been shown that the spirits 
of the just made perfect are in the same 
place with the angels, and have them for 
companions. The Bible reveals the fact that 
angels visit this earth, study with keenest in- 
terest the unfolding purposes of divine love 
and mercy for man, and thereby obtain new 
and enlarged views of the interior nature of 
God and of His infinite attributes. "The 
principalities and powers in heavenly places " 
— the various orders of good angels — attain 
their highest conceptions of "the manifold 

wisdom of God," new displays of His in- 
(62) 



Departed Saints. 63 

finite wisdom, power, and grace, through the 
church. These angels bend with benevolent 
sympathy over our race, encamp as invisible 
guards around good men, and in circum- 
stances of extremity and peril render them 
necessary helpful aid. Tou could not elimi- 
nate from the New Testament its angehc 
incidents without destroying its beautiful 
consistency and sadly mutilating its gleaming 
pages. Take a few instances of angelic 
agency. It was an angel who pre-heralded 
the birth both of the son of Ehzabeth and 
the Son of Mary, and announced the dawn 
of the new dispensation. On the night of 
Jesus' advent angels hovered near the spot 
of His nativity, and in the ears of the star- 
tled shepherds sang — sang more marvellously 
than when " the morning stars sang together, 
and all the sons of God shouted for joy '' — 
that celestial anthem that still goes on echo- 
ing down through the ages^ 

" Griory to Grod in the highest, 
And on earth peace, good- will toward men." 



64 Beyond the Stars. 

Angels seemed to have watched His con- 
flict of forty days with Satan, for after 
Satan's defeat and withdrawment, they min- 
istered to Him. An angel came to Him as 
He lay at midnight in agony of spirit upon 
the cold ground. His brow covered with 
beads of crimsoned sweat, and strengthened 
Him. Angels stood by the empty tomb and 
proclaimed His resurrection, and were pres- 
ent on the occasion of His ascension, and 
foretold the manner of His return. An 
angel appeared to the devout Cornehus while 
he was engaged in prayer, and instructed him 
how and where to obtain the knowledge he 
needed. An angel visited Peter in prison, 
knocked the shackles from his limbs, threw 
open its bolted doors, led him safely through 
the sleeping guards, and set him free. But 
why particularize? Is it not declared that 
they are all ministering spirits engaged in 
rendering helpful service to the heirs of sal- 
vation? If the angels are constant visitors 
to this earth, and are engaged, botli when we 
wake and when we sleep, in carrying out 



Dej)arted Saints. 65 

God's commands relative to His people; if 
they are present at the bedside of dying 
saints to conduct their spirits to heaven ; if 
they know when each sinner is converted 
and participate in the rejoicing which takes 
place in heaven over the salvation of an im- 
mortal soul— all of which is taught in the 
Scriptures with a clearness and an exphcit- 
ness which no one questions — and if the 
glorified saints are the associates of the 
angels, is it not reasonable to suppose that 
even through the angels they know some- 
thing of what is going on in this world ? If 
there is joy in heaven when it is reported 
that sinners on earth have turned from Satan 
unto God, who could more appreciatively 
participate in that joy, and swell its volume, 
than those who had once been sinners ? 

Has the fact that Christ has taken up His 
residence in heaven, and is, from His invis- 
ible thi'one, conducting the affairs of His 
kingdom, weakened His love for His people 
on earth or diminished His interest in the 

triumph of truth and righteousness? Does 
5 



66 Beyond the Stars. 

not the crowning glory and happiness of the 
believer consist in being with the Lord Jesus 
and being like Him, delighting in what He 
delights, and rejoicing in what He rejoices ? 
As He is deeply interested in the salvation 
of individual men and women, is it foolish, 
is it rash, to suppose that the saints in 
heaven, many of whom sacrificed, suffered, 
and even died for the cause of truth and the 
vindication of righteousness, are deeply in- 
terested in those events occurring on the earth 
which affect the prosperity of the Church 
and the eternal welfare of men? To the 
questions — Do the glorified still retain an in- 
terest in this world ? and do they know any- 
thing of what is taking place here ? — we hesi- 
tate not to answer, yes, yes. It is as easy to 
conceive of man in the maturity of his powers, 
forgetting the scenes of his boyhood home, 
as it is to conceive of those who have passed 
from earth to heaven, forgetting their live? 
here. 

But do glorified human spirits ever revisit 
the scenes of their former activity ? Do they 



Departed Saints. 67 

ever come back to this earth ? We listen 
with breathless interest to the answer God's 
Word gives to this question. It tells us that 
Moses and Elijah appeared in company with 
Jesus in the presence of three of His dis- 
ciples on the Mount of Transfiguration and 
talked with Him. The subject of their con- 
versation has been reported. They talk with 
Him about the sufferings and death which 
He was soon to endure in Jerusalem, and the 
magnificent results which would be achieved 
thereby. This incident teaches two truths. 
It shows us the possibihty of glorified spirits 
revisiting this earth. What was possible in 
the case of Moses and Elijah, is possible 
for other glorified spirits. It shows us that 
the glorified saints do take an interest in 
some things which occur in this world. Moses 
and Elijah, the representatives of the saints 
then in heaven, were deeply interested in the 
work of Christ. 

But the Scriptures go farther than this. 
They assure us that we are surrounded by a 
great multitude of glorified spirits, who hang 



68 Beyond the Stars. 

over us like a cloud of spectators to witness 
our progress in tlie Cliristian race. The in- 
spired writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
says, '^we are encompassed by so great a 
cloud of witnesses." " That the souls of be- 
lievers/' says Dr. Junkin, "being separated 
from the body, should be employed as angels 
are, ministering to the living saints, is in 
itself so reasonable that I should entertain 
the sentiment if the Bible were silent on the 
subject. The general prevalence of ghost 
stories, the popular belief on this subject so 
extensively prevalent, must have some foun- 
dation in truth. Superstition itself is but a 
perversion of truth. If utterly inconsistent, 
superstitions could not control men as they 
often do. It is their consistency with reason 
that gives them power. I can see nothing 
unreasonable in the conception that the souls 
of dead believers are employed hke the 
angels of glory as messengers of mercy to 
living saints. It may be objected that we 
have no knowledge of it. We have no 
knowledge of angelic ministrations, and yet 



Dejparted Saints, 69 

tlie Bible affirms them as realities. We have 
no knowledge of our soul's activity when we 
are asleep ; but do you believe that the soul 
is therefore inactive ? " What are some of 
our dreams ? " They may be but the dying 
whispers of interviews with other spirits con- 
fusedly echoing through the inlets of clay." 
" How pleasant the thought that our beloved 
friends who enjoy in glory the complete 
atonement, are permitted to visit us while 
we still Hnger in the vale below. In how 
many. ways do they snatch us from temp- 
tation, do they whisper to our spirits, This 
is the way we travelled — it leads to the 
heavenly home. How sweet the thought 
that our dear departed ones stand by the 
dying couch and witness our last struggle 
and strengthen us against temptation; and 
the moment of our release, oh, with what 
glad emotions do our freed spirits, now in 
open recognition of their presence, embrace 
them and with them wing their way to the 
heavenly glory ! Who, oh, who among the 
countless throng, — oli, who among the ten 



YO Beyond the Stars. 

thousand times ten thousand that stand be- 
fore the blessed Jesus — who so likely to de- 
sire and expect the embassage to our dying 
couch — who so likely to obtain it as those 
who ^with us have fought tlie good fight of 
faith and finished their course with joy ; and 
who have but recently travelled the road 
to glory and to Grod." "^ 

Ah, were not these eyes withholden — could 
we see the invisible and the spiritual as we 
shall see them when we lay aside these taber- 
nacles of clay — how often might we find that 
those whom death has taken from our side, 
and whom we are accustomed to think of as 
far off in some distant part of God's universe, 
are near us. " Perhaps," said Dr. Guthrie, 
as he lay dying — in alluding to the death of 
his youngest child, who had died many years 
before, " the greatest trial in all my life was 
when I lifted the clay-cold body and laid it 
in his little coffin. Ay, though his little feet 
never run on this earth, I think I see him 

*" Commentary on the Epistle to the He- 
brews." 



Departed Saints, ^1 

running to meet me at the golden gate." 
More than Dr. Guthrie indulge the fond 
anticipation of happy meetings and eternal 
reunions. 

** Over the river they beckon to me, 

Loved ones who've crossed to the farther 
side, 
The gleam of their snowy robes I see, 
But their voices are drowned in the rush- 
ing tide/' 



VIII. 

THE RESURRECTION BODY. 

While the Scriptures teach that believers, 
at death, do immediately pass into heaven 
and enter npon a career of unspeakable glory, 
they also teach that they have not yet attained 
to their highest state of bliss. Their state of 
perfect bliss will be attained when God shall 
give them back their bodies, which He is to 
raise, transfigured and deathless, out of the 
ashes of the sepulchre. When will this inter- 
mediate state — this period of disseverance of 
the soul from the body — end ? It will end at 
the second coming of Christ. The Lord Jesus 
Christ is to return again to this world in per- 
son, to right its wrongs and settle up its affairs 
on the principles of infinite equity. The 
manner of His return will, in splendor, com- 
port with the dignity of His person. He Him- 
(72) 



The Besurrection Body, Y3 

self lias said : " The Son of Man shall come 
in His glory, and all the holy angels with 
Him." The angels who appeared to the dis- 
ciples at the moment of His ascension, as they 
stood gazing up into heaven at the spot where 
He had disappeared, said : " This same Jesus 
which is taken up from you into heaven shall 
so come in like manner as ye have seen Him 
go into heaven." Paul wrote to the Thessa- 
lonians : " If we believe that Jesus died and 
rose again, even so them, also, that are asleep 
in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this 
we say unto you by the Word of the Lord, 
that we that are alive, that are left unto the 
coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede 
them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord 
himseK shall descend from heaven with a 
shout, with the voice of tlie archangel, and 
with the trump of God, and the dead in 
Christ sliall rise first." John also writes: 
" Behold, He cometh with clouds ; and every 
eye shall see Him." These passages teach us 
that the Lord shall return in celestial, regal 
glory, and that His visible appearance in the 



14: Beyond the Stars. 

clouds, accompanied by the angelic and re- 
deemed hosts of heaven, will be announced 
by a signal cry ; by the sound of a trumpet 
that will be heard by all the inhabitants of 
the earth. At what particular time in the re- 
volving centuries the Lord will return in per- 
son we know not. We only know that a 
fixed time in the secret counsels of God has 
been appointed, when the present order of 
things shall be brought to a close. He may 
not come in our lifetime. Millenniums may 
roll by before God's appointed day arrives. 
The first act in the closing drama of this 
world will be the resurrection of the bodies 
of the saints. " The dead in Christ shall rise 
first." 

In discussing the question of the resurrec- 
tion of the body with some Corinthian Chris- 
tians who denied it, Paul sets it forth as an 
essential factor of Christianity. To deny it, 
he declares, is to brand Christ as a deceiver, 
stamp the Gospel as a tissue of falsehoods, af- 
firm that the early disciples, who sealed their 
testimony with their blood, were conscious 



The Resurrection Body. 75 

and deliberate liars, and that the good who 
had departed this life are annihilated. " If 
there be no resurrection of the dead, then is 
Christ not risen. And if Christ be not risen, 
then is onr preaching vain, and your faith is 
also vain. Tea, and we are found false wit- 
nesses of God ; because we have testified of 
God that He raised up Christ, if so be that 
the dead rise not." He supposes an objector 
to raise two questions, viz.: "How are the 
dead raised up ? And with what body do they 
come ? " Mark how Paul, guided by the Holy 
Spirit, answers these two questions. First, 
" How are the dead raised up ? " He answers 
this question by analogies drawn from nature. 
He does not adduce these analogies as proofs 
of the resurrection. The resurrection of the 
body is a pure doctrine of revelation, incapa- 
ble of being demonstrated by reason from the 
facts which nature supplies. These analogies 
are adduced for the purpose of making plain 
to the minds of those who regard the resur- 
rection of the body as inconceivable its possi- 
bility and credibility, by showing that events 



76 Beyond the Stars. 

analogous to it were constantly occurring 
around them. His first illustration is drawn 
from the laws of vegetable reproduction, and 
is designed to show that death is often a con- 
dition of a new and higher form of life. 
" Thou fool, that which . thou so west is not 
quickened except it die." Thou foolish one 
who considerest the resurrection of the body 
to bo inconceivable and impossible, what be- 
comes of the seed planted in the ground? 
Does it not ferment, disintegrate, rot and die, 
in order that it may live again? Death for 
the seed does not mean annihilation, only dis- 
solution — the passing out of one mode of ex- 
istence into another. May the same not be 
true of the human body ? If decay and de- 
composition on the part of the seed are a nec- 
essary condition of a new and higher form 
of life, may they not also be the necessary 
prelude and the prognostic of a grander and 
more glorious mode of existence for the hu- 
man body ? " That which thou sowest, thou 
sowest not that body that shall be." Wlien 
you sow seed, that which springs up differs 



TJie liesurrection Body. Y7 

in outward form from that which you planted. 
The seed dies, and out of it springs a blade ; 
then the blade changes into a stock with a 
flower on it. How different in outward form 
is the beautiful green stock, waving in the 
wind, from the sere little seed which you 
sowed. Tet, notwithstanding the great out- 
ward changes which each seed undergoes, it 
preserves its identity. If you plant wheat 
you reap wheat, and if you plant corn you. 
reap corn. Each seed preserves that particu- 
lar form or body which God was pleased, in 
His infinite wisdom, to give it at creation. 
The point of the illustration is this — that the 
future body may differ from our present body 
as much as the waving grain in the summer 
sun differs from the bare, dry seed sowed in 
the ground. Tet, as the seed sowed preserves 
its identity amid all the changes of form 
which it undergoes, so the immortal and glori- 
fied human body will be essentially the same 
as the present body. The two things which 
this analogy drawn from the laws of vege- 
table reproduction teaches are : First, that 



78 Beyond the Stars. 

death does not necessarily imply destrnction ; 
it is sometimes the necessary condition for a 
higher and more glorious manifestation of 
life; and second, that ontward form may 
change, and yet identity be still preserved. 
If physiological science be true, the human 
body, by the assimilation of new matter and 
the excretion of old matter, undergoes a 
complete change in seven years. IsTotwith- 
standing the fact that the man of seventy has 
had ten bodies, and that his body has been 
changed repeatedly in size and expression, is 
he not conscious of being the same person 
that he was in boyhood ? Is it not then con- 
ceivable that the human body will preserve 
what is essential to its identity, amid all the 
changes which await it in the grave, until it 
emerge from it a glorious and immortal 
body? 

The second analogical argument used by 
Paul is that the same substance may assume 
many forms. This is seen iq the fact that 
there is a great difference between earthly 
bodies. '' All flesh is not the same flesh ; but 



The Resurrection Body. Y9 

there is one kind of flesh of men, another 
flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another 
of birds." Originally all flesh was formed 
out of the same fundamental elements. The 
bodies of fishes, birds, beasts, and men are 
composed of flesh and blood. But how dif- 
ferent in kind and form is the flesh of these 
vai-ious orders in the animal kingdom. The 
inference is that if God out of the same 
fundamental elements could fashion the vari- 
ous orders of animals which inhabit the 
globe, each adapted to its environments, is it 
supposable that His power is exhausted and 
that no new exhibition of it will be witnessed 
when the buried bodies of ffis saints are 
raised ? 

The answer of Paul to him who objected 
to the possibility and credibility of the resur- 
rection on the ground that when the human 
body dies it returns to its original elements, 
and these elements may in turn enter into 
the flbres of plants, and through them into 
the tissues of animals, and subsequently be- 
come incorporated in other human bodies; 



80 Beyond the Stars. 

and consequently it is incredible that God 
should raise up these bodies again, since the 
atoms which compose them might have been 
in a thousand other human bodies, is, as we 
have seen, twofold : First, the resurrection of 
the body is po^ssible and conceivable from 
the fact that analogous events are constantly 
occurring in the vegetable world under our 
own eyes ; second, from the fact that matter 
is capable of endless modifications. If God 
can fashion the same matter into the granite 
of the hills and the waters of the sea, the 
clods of the valley and the hues of the rain- 
bow, into waving verdure and golden fruit, the 
monster of the sea and the navigator of the 
air, the beast of field and forest, and the ex- 
pressive features of the human face, is it not 
absurd to say that our future bodies must 
be gross material bodies like our present 
bodies? The resurrection body may still 
be a body essentially the same as this body, 
and yet differ from it in appearance, as 
much as the waving grain differs from the 
decaying kernel in the moist soil, or sun- 



The Resurrection Body. 81 

lit clond differs from the lustreless clay. 
Is God all-powerful? Did He of old call 
out of the matrix of nonentity the mat- 
ter of which this globe was formed? Was 
man's body originally formed from the dust 
by His creative fiat ? Why then should it be 
thought a thing incredible that God should 
raise the dead ? For Him as a Being to 
whose power no limit can be set, all things 
are possible. 

The second question is, " With what man- 
ner of body do they come ? '' The apostle 
replies that the resurrection body will differ 
in inward qualities as well as in outward 
aspect from our present bodies. " It is sown 
in corruption.'' That is, the human body is 
laid in the grave, as the seed is planted in 
the ground, liable to corruption and decay. 
It is laid there, not to be lost, but to await 
the resurrection day, when it will be " raised 
in incorruption " — no longer liable to decay. 
" It is sown in dishonor." When the human 
body is laid in the grave, decomposition hav- 
ing secretly commenced its destructive work, 
6 



82 Beyond the Stars, 

it is stripped of the beauty and attractiveness 
it possessed while living. It is necessary to 
conceal it from view. But it will be " raised 
in glory." It will come forth in a form of 
resplendent brightness and nameless beauty 
that will awaken wonder and admiration. 
" It is sown in weakness.'' The human body 
in the prime of its power is weak. Care has 
to be taken not to unduly tax its strength or 
strain its energies, lest it break down and 
become a wreck. Even with the most judi- 
cious care, its power soon wanes. At death 
it is absolutely stripped of all power. But it 
vsdn be " raised in poT^^er." It will be raised 
in the possession of an energy, elasticity, and 
power that will render it a fit abode for the 
enlarged capacities and new functions of the 
glorified spirit. " It is sown a natural body." 
A natural body is an organism composed of 
flesh and blood, requiring food, air, and rest. 
But it will be " raised a spiritual body," 
needing none of these thiogs. 

Our present bodies possess five senses, 
through which we obtain whatever knowl- 



The Besurrection Body. 83 

edge we possess of tlie universe. The glory 
of the resurrection body may be somewhat 
dimly conceived by reflecting how wonder- 
fully our knowledge and power would be en- 
larged by these senses simply being increased 
in range and acuteness. Take the organ of 
hearing. Why is there such marvellous silence 
in a tropica] forest at noonday ? The stillness 
is in part due to the dullness of our hearing. 
It is possible to conceive of this organ being 
rendered so acute and sensitive that the little 
currents flowing through the cells of the trees 
would break upon the ear like the roar of 
Niagara. '^"We communicate with one an- 
other here upon the earth by means of speech, 
and as it is only needful and desirable that 
we should do so at verv hmited distances, it is 
but a small circle of the space around it that 
the human voice can fill so as to be distinctly 
audible to its outer edge. Beyond that, the 
sound dies away and is lost. This arises not 
from the feebleness of an organ alone, but 
chiefly from the air being comparatively so 
dull and sluggish a medium for conveying 



84 Beyond the Stars. 

sound. We know at least of other mediinns 
which are far more careful of any movements 
committed to them ; which do not suffer them 
to be soon dissipated and lost ; which trans- 
rait them with far greater velocity. The 
medium or element, for instance, through 
which light passes is of this nature. Light 
travels through that medium six hundred and 
eighty times quicker than sound does. It 
takes but a few minutes to come to us from 
the sun. l^ow let us only conceive that, in- 
stead of having a vehicle which can carry its 
passengers so short a way, and at comparative- 
ly so slow a pace, sound had a vehicle as ethe- 
real and elastic as light has — let us conceive 
that, instead of there being a difference bB- 
tween them, there were a sameness ; that the 
Almighty so ordered it, as He so easily could, 
that the sound of a human voice could travel 
side by side with a sunbeam, uttered this mo- 
ment upon the earth, it could be heard a few 
moments afterward among the stars. Let 
the Creator of all things make but this single 
and simple change, then at once within easy 



The Resurrection Body, 85 

reach of each other would the inhabitants of 
the most distant worlds be placed, and, had 
they but a common language, could just as 
easily converse across the vast fields of space 
as we can here converse across the breadth (;f 
a few hundred yards ; the question and answer 
might pass to and fro ; and one hour's such 
converse, to how many questions which have 
occupied the most thoughtful men for centu- 
ries would it furnish a reply ! " * 

What new and startling revelations are now 
possible by a simple enlargement of the pow- 
ers of our senses ! May the resurrection body 
not only have our present senses increased in 
their range and acuteness a million-fold, but 
new senses now unknown to us added ? 

The Scriptures assure us of three things in 
regard to the resurrection body. First, it will 
not be composed of flesh and blood like our 
present bodies, because " flesh and blood can- 
not inherit the kingdom of God." Second, it 
will be incorruptible, glorious, powerful, im- 

* "The Resurrection of the Dead,'' by Rev. 
William Hanna, D.D., page 177. 



86 Beyond the Stars. 

mortal — a body adapted to tlie conditions of 
that world where God, in the visible splen- 
dors of His uncreated glories, dwells — and 
fitted for the enlarged capacities and new 
functions of the glorified spirit. Third, it will 
be like the glorified body of Christ, for at 
His coming He will " change our vile body " 
— or body of humiliation — " that it may be 
fashioned like unto His glorious body, accord- 
ing to the working whereby He is able even 
to subdue all things unto Himself." When 
Christ was transfigured in the presence of His 
disciples, " His face did shine as the sun, and 
His raiment was white as the light." This 
transfiguration adumbrates what the glory of 
the resurrection body shall be. When the 
apostle John in vision saw Him in His glori- 
fied body. His countenance beamed as brill- 
iantly as the sun shining in his strength. 
His eyes glowed like a flame of fire, and His 
feet shone like burning brass. We shall be 
like Him. In trying to form a conception 
of the glory of the future body of the saints 
we may safely give free rein to fancy, because 



The Eesurrection Body. 87 

the glorious reality cannot be surpassed. 
''Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither 
hath it entered into the heart of man" the 
glory which God, in this particular, hath in 
reserve for His people. The saints who have 
accompanied Christ from heaven to earth, on 
the occasion of His second advent, will be 
clothed again with the same bodies which 
they once wore — the same in form, though 
changed in essential qualities, and dowered 
with exhanstless energy and surpassing, fade- 
less beauty. The bodies of believers then liv- 
ing will, in the twinkling of an eye, undergo 
such a change as shall render them immortal. 
On the Resurrection day, when the power of 
death has been forever annulled, and Christ's 
redeemed ones shall stand before Him, glori- 
fied spirits in glorified bodies, then shall they 
be able to say in rapturous triumph : '' O 
death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where 
is thy victory ? Thanks be unto God, which, 
giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ." 



IX. 



THE EELATION OF THE SAINTS TO THE 
GENERAL JUDGMENT. 

The second act in the closing drama of 
this world will be the Judgment. The resur- 
rection of the wicked is to follow the resur- 
rection of the saints. Imagine this earth 
hollow with sepulchres at the sound of " the 
trump of God," quivering from pole to pole 
as it yields up its dead. The sea will sur- 
render all those who fell victims to its fury, 
and found a grave in its depths. From 
battle-fields once soaked with human blood, 
from the ruins of once populous cities, from 
thousands of rural and urban graveyards, 
from almost every spot of this heaving earth, 
on that great day will human bodies spring 
into existence. 

One of the most impressive spectacles on 

(88) 



The General Judgment 89 

which mortal eye can gaze, is a vast throng 
of upturned human faces. It would be an 
imposing spectacle to see all the inhabitants 
of New York or Brooklyn gathered in one 
place earnestly deliberating on a question of 
vital importance to each one. No one could 
contemplate such a scene without feeling its 
impressiveness. How much more vast and 
impressive would be the spectacle if all the 
people of this nation — ^its fifty millions of 
inhabitants — met under similar circumstances. 
Imagine a spectacle still more overpowering, 
an assembly in which all the people now 
living on the earth have met, and yet this 
furnishes but a very inadequate idea of the 
vastness of that multitude that will stand at 
last before the judgment-seat of Christ. 
Could I by an exercise of Almightiness flat- 
ten out this earth into a great plain, and then 
could I take you to some elevated position in 
the air and endow you with such powery of 
vision that you could see everything that is 
occurring among its inhabitants, you would 
find that continuously, without pause or in- 



90 Beyond the Stan. 

termption, day and night, winter and sum- 
mer, springtime and harvest, in some part of 
the earth human bodies are being committed 
to the grave. And this same thing has been 
going on for centuries upon centuries. O 
what a long, wide procession, stretching back 
into the dim centuries, is that which is 
steadily with noiseless tread, at the rate of a 
hundred thousand souls a day, moving out 
of this world into the invisible world. The 
present estimated population of the earth 
is nearly fourteen hundred milhons, and in 
less than half a century they will all be sleep- 
ing in the dust. 

'* All that tread the earth are but a handful 
To the tribes that slumber in its bosom."" 

Each century that intervenes between the 
period in which we live and the judgment, 
will see thrice the present population of the 
globe sink into the tomb. Numbers fail to 
convey the faintest idea of the immenseness 
of that multitude which will gather before 
the judgment-seat of Christ at the last day. 



The General Judgment. 91 

To swell the number and add to the im- 
pressiveness of that scene the fallen angels 
will appear. This fact is stated by Peter : 
" God spared not the angels that sinned, but 
cast them down to hell and delivered them 
into chains of dai'kness to be reserved unto 
the judgment." Similar in purport are the 
words of Jude : " The angels which kept 
not their first estate, but left their own habi- 
tation. He hath reserved in everlasting chains 
under darkness unto the judgment of the 
great day." John caught a ghmpse in his 
apocalyptic vision of what the judgment 
scene will be, and thus describes it : " I saw 
a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, 
from whose face the earth and the heavens 
fled away ; and there was found no place for 
them. And I saw the dead, small and great, 
stand before God; and the books were 
opened ; and another book was opened which 
is the book of life ; and the dead were judged 
out of those things which were written in 
the books according to their works." 

Blending the various Scriptural descrip- 



92 Beyond the Stars. 

tions of the final judgment we have this pic- 
ture. On that great day the Lord Jesus 
Avill, in His glorified human nature, sit en- 
throned in the clouds surrounded by all 
the holy angels. Before Him will be gath- 
ered the whole human race, all who have 
ever lived on this earth from Adam onward, 
and all the fallen angels. The saints, clothed 
in glorious bodies like Christ's own body, 
will be on His right hand, and His enemies, 
human and angelic, on His left hand. But 
the question is, what relation do the saints 
sustain to the final judgment? Are they 
there to be tried and judged ? 

There are many passages in the Scriptures 
which teach with great clearness that be- 
lievers in Christ, those who have passed into 
the heavenly world, and those who are still 
on earth, have entered a condition of life in 
which they are not subject to the general 
judgment. Christ's o\mi words on this 
point are, according to the rendering of the 
revised edition, " Yerily, verily, I say unto 
you, He that heareth my word and beheveth 



T1ie General Judgment. 93 

Him that sent me, Jiath eternal life^ and 
Cometh not into judgment^ but hath passed 
out of death into life." That is, the believer 
has passed out of that state of sin and guilt 
that belongs to the judgment, and when the 
judgment comes he has therefore no part in 
it. Again, Christ says : " The hour cometh 
in which all that are in the tombs shall hear 
His voice and come forth : they that have 
done good, unto the resurrection of life ; and 
they that have done ill, unto the resurrection 
of judgment." The resurrection for the 
good is the rising body and soul into the full 
bhss of heaven ; while they that have done 
ill, to that condition determined by the judg- 
ment. To Martha, Christ said : " He that 
liveth and believeth in me shall never die." 
In the case of the believer the only thing 
that dies in death is death itself. " The con- 
tinuity of the life that is lived in Christ is 
never suspended, but is borne through the 
momentary darkness of death, into the sphere 
of a vivid and fruitful human experience 
where all is perfect forevermore." " There 



94 Beyond the Stars. 

is therefore now no condemnation to them 
who are in Christ Jesus." These declarations 
of Scripture teach with a clearness that can- 
not be gainsaid that eternal life begins in the 
soul of the believer here, that death is only 
an incident in his experience which does not 
interrupt the continuity of his life and is the 
means of introducing him into a state of sin- 
less and perfect bliss. 

But there is another class of passages which 
seem to imply that behevers will be arraigned 
before the judgment-seat of Christ. "It is 
appointed unto men once to die, and after 
death the judgment." " We must all be made 
manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ, 
that each may receive the things done in the 
body, according to what he hath done, whether 
it be good or bad." But what is the judg- 
ment to him who dies in the Lord ? Jesus, 
who pardoned all his sins the moment he be- 
lieved, and who is his best friend, is his judge. 
He appears at the judgment-seat as one whose 
acquittal has already been pronounced, clad 
in the perfect righteousness of Jesus. The 



The General Judgment. 95 

judgment does not determine or change his 
condition. The Resurrection, for him, is 
not a resurrection unto judgment, but a res- 
urrection unto greater fullness of life and 
bliss. 

We return to the question, What relation 
do the saints sustain to the final judgment ? 
Are such men as Abraham, Moses, David, 
Daniel, Stephen, and Paul — men who have 
been thousands xA years in heaven — to be put 
on trial on the great judgment day ? Is there 
not considerable confusion in the minds of 
many Christians in regard to the object of 
the final judgment ? If those who believe in 
the Lord Jesus Christ are pardoned the mo- 
ment they believe, and their sins are cancelled 
and never rise against them to condemn them ; 
if those who die in the Lord pass at once into 
heaven, and enter upon a career of sinless 
bliss — countless multitudes of whom will have 
been thousands of years in heaven when the 
judgment day comes, and, consequently, their 
eternal destiny will have been fixed thousands 
of years before the judgment — what is the 



96 Beyond the Stars. 

object of tlie final judgment ? Its object is 
to vindicate God's administration of tbe affairs 
of tliis world, and exhibit to the intelligent 
universe His manifold wisdom and goodness 
as revealed in the plan of salvation. It takes 
place at the end of the world, because God's 
plan will then be complete, and the results 
can be exhibited. " Then those parts of the 
divine procedure which have been too deep 
and too high for the comprehension of the 
wisest and best men, and which have led 
wicked men to blaspheme the name of God, 
will shine forth to the admiring joy of saints 
and angels, and to the confusion of the 
ungodly. This is the view constantly set 
forth in the Scriptures. The apostle Paul 
teaches that the plan of salvation is developed 
'to the intent that now unto principalities 
and powers in heavenly places might be 
known, by the church, the manifold wisdom 
of God, according to the eternal purpose 
which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.' 
But there are many things in this wonderful 
plan which the angels to whom the apostle 



Tlie General Judgment, 97 

refers are profoundly mysterious, and which 
they cannot comprehend, and Hhe manifold 
wisdom ' of which they cannot see till it shall 
be comj)leted. 'Which things/ says Peter, 
'the angels desire to look into.' Therefore 
the Psalmist, speaking of the general judg- 
ment, says : ' He shall call to the heavens from 
above, and to the earth, that He may judge 
His people : Gather my saints together unto 
me — those who have made a covenant with 
me by sacrifice. And the heavens shall de- 
clare His righteousness, for God is judge 
Himself.' He issues His summons to the in- 
habitants of heaven and earth to witness the 
solemn scene, that the heavens may declare 
His righteousness. Accordingly, we read that 
'when the Son of Man shall come in His 
glory,' the holy angels shall come with Him 
to witness the final adjudication. Paul tells 
lis that He 'shall be revealed from heaven 
with His mighty angels, in flaming fire, tak- 
ing vengeance on them that know not God 
and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus 
Christ,' and that ' He shall come to be glori- 



98 Beyond the Stars. 

fied in His saints, and to be admired in all 
them that believe.' " "^ 

The judgment day is the day on which 
the saints shall stand before God, body 
and soul, sinless, glorified, and be openly ac- 
knowledged by the Lord Jesus Christ before 
the universe. The saints, instead of fearing 
the approach of the judgment day as a day 
whose decisions may unfavorably affect them, 
are taught in the Scriptures to look forward 
to it as their coronation day. Instead of be- 
ing judged, they will actually bear a part in the 
general judgment as the assessors of Christ. 
" Know ye not that the saints will judge the 
world ? " " Know ye not that we shall judge 
angels ? " The scenes of that great day will 
be closed by the Judge aud King saying to 
His redeemed ones: "Come, ye blessed of 
my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for 
you from the foundation of the world." 



* ^'Inmiortality of the Soul and Destiny of 
the Wicked," by Rev. N. L. Rice, D.D., page 163. 



X. 

THE GRAND CONSUMMATION. 

While the judgment is in progress in the 
air, the earth is to pass through a metamor- 
phosis of fire which is to purge it of sin. 
The Psalmist says : " Of old hast Thou laid the 
foundation of the earth ; and the heavens are 
the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, 
but Thou shalt endure ; yea, all of them shall 
wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt 
Thou change them and they shall be changed." 
'' Lift up your eyes to the heavens," says Isaiab|, 
" and look upon the earth beneath ; for th^ 
heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and 
the earth shall wax old like a garment." 
Again, " Behold, I create new heavens and a 
new earth ; and the former shall not be re- 
membered nor come into mind." " Heaven 

and earth," said Christ, " shall pass away." 

(99) 



100 Beyond the Stars. 

Peter says, "The heavens and earth which 
are now aie kept in store reserved unto 
fire against the day of judgment and per- 
dition of ungodly men. The day of the 
Lord will come as a thief in the night : in 
which the heavens shall pass away with a great 
noise, and the elements shall melt with fer- 
vent heat ; the earth also, and the works that 
are therein, shall be burned up. Seeing then 
that all these things shall be dissolved, what 
manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy 
conversation and godliness, looking for and 
hasting unto the coming of the day of God, 
wherein the heavens being on fire shall be 
dissolved and the elements shall melt with fer- 
vent heat ? " "I saw," says John, " a great 
white throne and Him that sat on it, from 
whose face the heavens fied away, and there 
was found no place for them. I saw a new 
heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven 
and the first earth were passed away ; and 
there was no more sea." 

It would be vain to speculate as to the 
specific nature of the unexplained changes 



The Grcmd Consummation. 101 

the earth and its atmospheric heavens — all 
that part of material creation affected by sin 
— are to undergo at the final judgment. 
But with our present knowledge of the con- 
stituent elements of earth, air, and water, it 
is easy to see how a change in the relation 
which these properties sustain to each other 
would wrap this terraqueous globe in a flame 
of fire that would cause it to melt with fer- 
vent heat. "The fire-element in nature is 
oxygen; this gas is the producer of flame 
and combustion, and is the mightiest and 
most destructive of all the elements. Be- 
tween one-half and two-thirds of the crust 
of this globe and of the bodies of its inhabit- 
ants consist of oxygen. One-fifth of the 
volume of the whole atmosphere is composed 
of oxygen. No less than eight-ninths of all 
water is formed of the same gas. It makes 
up three-fourths of our own bodies, and no less 
than four-fifths of every plant, and at least 
one-half of the solid rock. Let then this ele- 
ment but be released, let the mysterious 
affinities that now hold it in restraint but 



102 Beyond the Stars. 

cease, and the hardened rocks, or even the 
very waters of the ocean, would supply the 
fire and fervent heat that would consume 
the earth and the works that are therein.'' ^ 

" It is more than probable that when the 
last catastrophe of our globe arrives, the oxy- 
gen and the nitrogen, or the two constituent 
principles of the atmosphere, will be sepa- 
rated by the interposition of Almighty Power. 
And the moment this separation takes place, 
the most dreadful explosions will resound 
throughout the whole expanse which sur- 
rounds the globe, which will stun the assem- 
bled world and shake the earth to its foun- 
dations. For if, in chemical experiments, 
conducted on a small scale, the separation of 
two gases, or their coming in contact with 
the principle of flame, is frequently accom- 
panied with a loud and destructive explosion, 
it is impossible to form an adequate idea of 
the loud and tremendous explosions which 
would ensue were the whole atmosphere at 



* '* Religion and Chemistry," by Prof. J. P. 
Cooke. 



The Grand Consurmnation, 103 

once dissolved and its elementary principles 
separated from each other and left to exert 
their native energies. A sound as if creation 
had burst asunder, and accompanied the next 
moment with a universal blaze extending 
over sea and land, would present a scene of 
sublimity and terror which would more than 
reahze all the descriptions given in Scripture 
of this solemn scene." ^ 

Out of the fires in which this globe will be 
wrapped, a new heaven and a new earth will 
emerge, garnished with fairer scenes and more 
lovely landscapes than mortal eyes have ever 
gazed upon — an earth free from the taint or 
shadow of evil, wherein righteousness will 
dwell. There are expressions of Scripture 
which would seem to warrant the opinion 
held by some that this reconstructed and 
beautified earth will be one of the many man- 
sions in God's house which the glorified may 
visit, or in which they may dwell. 

After the resurrection has taken place, and 

* '' Philosophy of a Future State," by Dr. 
Thomas Dick. 



104 Beyond the Stars. 

the judgment is over, and the new heavens 
and the new earth have appeared — after sin 
has been extirpated, and death destroyed, 
and Christ shall have gathered all His people 
into heaven — one thing more remains to be 
done. Then the Lord Jesus Christ will re- 
sign His mediatorial sceptre. " Then cometh 
the end, when He shall have dehvered up the 
kingdom to God, even the Father ; when He 
shall have put down all rule, and all authority 
and power. For He must reign till He hath 
put all enemies under His feet. And when 
all things shall be subdued unto Him, then 
shall the Son also Himself be subject unto 
Him that put all things under Him, that God 
may be all in all." The end for which the 
mediatorial kingdom was estabhshed — name- 
ly, the extirpation of sin and the subjugation 
of every power hostile to God — ^having been 
accompUshed, Christ's mediatorial reign will 
cease, and God shall dwell and reign vis- 
ibly in the midst of His people. As we sweep 
out on the wings of a reverent imagination 
beyond the judgment, and contemplate re- 



TliG Grand Consummation. 105 

deemed man, a glorified spirit in a glorified 
body — clothed with the pomp and power of 
immortality, and fitted to work ont imwearied- 
ly the grand ministries of eternity — ^the Scrip- 
tures teach two things in regard to his eternal 
future : 

1. He shall be forever with the Lord. 
Eternal residence and fellowship with Jesus ! 
Rapturous thought! This implies absolute 
and everlasting exemption from sin, tempta- 
tion, sorrow and death, and perfect holiness 
and ineffable bUss. 

'* The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years ; 
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, 
Unhurt amid the war of elements, 
The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds." 

The full greatness of the joy and glory of 
heaven cannot be set forth in the dialect of 
-- earth. 

2. His knowledge of God, and of His works 
and ways, will continue to increase through 
all eternity. " The future is to be a grand 
progress through the linked sequences of an 
ascending scale; a golden ladder which we 



106 Beyond the Stars. 

shall climb, roTind after round, till we stand 
amid the awful and transfiguring splendors of 
the eternal throne ; a constant advance towards 
the central Light ; a constant increase in life, 
power, wisdom, charity ; a beatific vision, which 
grows and spreads as we gaze upon it, and pours 
enlarging volume of energy and peace into our 
souls." ^ Is not this endless life of glory, in- 
creasing knowledge and power, beyond the 
stars, which it is possible to obtain through 
faith in Christ, worth all the self-denial and 
trials which it may now involve ? " The suf- 
ferings of this present time are not worthy to 
be compared with the glory which shall be re- 
vealed in us." Reader," give dihgence to make 
your calling and election sure. Add to your 
faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to 
knowledge temperance, and to temperance pa- 
tience, and to patience godliness, and to godli- 
ness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kind- 
ness charity. So an entrance shall be ministered 
unto you abundantly into the everlasting king- 
dom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." 



* ^^The Resurrection," by Samuel Cox. 



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